A balsa violin

Waltham, Chris

doi:doi:10.1119/1.2996482

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American Journal of Physics -- January 2009 -- Volume 77, Issue 1, pp. 30

A balsa violin

Chris Waltham

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z1

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Almost half a century ago John Schelleng determined the scaling rules that show how violins can be made from nontraditional materials. These principles suggest that balsa wood may be a possible, if unlikely, construction material. To test this idea, a balsa violin was constructed and found to be playable. Its vibrational behavior is shown to be in agreement with Schelleng’s scaling rules. The instrument was not difficult to build, and its construction can be repeated by anyone of moderate skill with a chisel and sandpaper and access to an audio frequency analysis program. The reward is a tactile appreciation for the vibrational behavior of materials and the physics of musical instruments that is difficult to gain otherwise.